My Place Or Yours?
by miarae
Summary: Lit. Jess needs someone to share his appartment with. Rory needs a place to stay. Futurefic.


**Title: **My Place Or Yours?

**Summary:** Lit. Jess needs someone to share his appartment with. Rory needs a place to stay. Futurefic.

**Disclaimer:** Plot is mine, Jess and Rory are not. Sigh.

* * *

Twenty people he had interviewed so far. Twenty _insane_ people. Jess Mariano wondered where all the sane men and women in this city were –probably in their own flats.

After sleeping on his friends' couch for a few months he had finally decided to get his own appartment in the city of his youth. Finding a place to live had been easy, getting a roommate to share the rent with almost impossible.

So there he was, 26 years old, interviewing people that sometimes eerily remembered Stars Hollows inhabitants. Kirk. No further comment. Someone who looked like he could be Deans' twin, except for the obvious drugaddiction. Really, he could have handled the drugs. Some middle-aged woman calling him sweetheart all the time. Enough said.

Jess sighed, closing the door. Maybe he'd have to find a job and give up this whole roommate-plan. He bit his lip, as he usually did when he was thinking. Getting a job would mean his script would be delayed, which would result in a very pissed off Joyce. Not something he'd like to see.

He was just about to pick up the paper when the doorbell rang.

* * *

When Jess had left Stars Hollow he'd been screwing up royally. Two years he had spent blaming everything on everyone but himself, until he had realised that he was the one to push people away. He was just like his mother. When he had finally understood that you could make your own destiny, no matter what people thought or expected, he had done everything he could to prove them wrong. He wasn't a screw-up. He wouldn't end up failing or addicted or dead. He'd be on top, defying everyone's' expectations. Look at me. Here I am. Good enough.

He had started small. Finished highschool. Got a job. Worked for a while, trying to figure out which direction to head in. His first screenplay had been written when Lily had asked him to help with the school play. How could he resist those puppy eyes? People had been talking, had been wondering how he could portray the shy smalltowngirls so well, making the play both humorous and dramatic. It had been easy.

Even now he still wrote about his own experiences. Fights: he'd think about Dean. Rory. Luke. Lust: Shane. Rory again. Happiness: Luke. Rory. Always Rory, even when she made him crawl. Which was another thing. Sadness. Self-pity. The need to blame someone. The need to blame himself.

Currently he was working on a new movie. The movie (which workingtitle was Stay Alive) was about a group of youngsters, who, while playing an online horror game, notice that once their characters die...they die. He was still trying to work out a few kinks and the deadline was two weeks from now. Which, with his growing pile of bills, obviously wasn't his biggest problem.

He _really_ needed a roommate.

* * *

Walking towards the door he was hoping for not another Stars Hollow flashback. He had escaped that town for a reason. Well, mostly for Rory but he hadn't been all that happy with the other freaky inhabitants either. Not that they cared for him either. They'd been all too glad to see him go. The boy that hurt their townprincess.

He sighed. He had been dating Rory for gods' sake. Not the whole damn town! Still they had meddled in their lives, poisoning her mind until she could barely distinguish her own thoughts and wants from those of other people. He wondered if she would have slept with him if she'd been just a girl. He wondered if he would have wanted her to.

His hands messed up his hair as he sighed once again. He hated running into people that reminded him of his past. He did not want to be remembered. It was the past. He had come back for her, pleaded her to go with him, and she had said no. She had thrown away their love and there was no reason for him to still be thinking about her. She'd been just a girl. There were so many girls in this world, hell, even in New York. There was absolutely no reason that he'd...

Damn.

This could not be. It was impossible. She couldn't be standing in front of the door he just opened, looking at him as surprised as he did at her. She couldn't give him that look that reminded him of how he tried to persuade her to go with him to New York. And yet here they were. In New York. Oh sweet irony.

"What are you doing here?"

Did she remember? Did she know that his heart had broken all over again when she had spoken those words? How it had shattered the moment he had seen Dean.

"Jess"

She started, hesitating.

"What do you want?"

One crazy second he expected her to say _"I don't know. I just wanted to see you, talk to you. I just..." _but she didn't. She wasn't like him. She wouldn't show up on his doorstep for no apparent reason. She was too sweet to torture him like that.

"I didn't know this was your place"

She was holding a paper in her hand and extended it to him.

"Here. Your ad. You wanted a roommate."

He nodded.

"You live here? In New York?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"You don't seem like the New York type."

Her eyes lit up a little as she smiled.

"Don't you remember...I once got mistaken for a native"

He nodded too.

"So"

"Yeah"

Part of him wanted to say that he already had found a roommate. Too late. Sorry. Good luck finding another place. He did _not_ want to be so close to anyone from his past, and definitely not his still so gorgeous ex-girlfriend. Why was she here anyway? She'd never leave Lorelai alone...she'd never just pick an appartment from the paper without her grandmother checking his past. It was just not like her.

"Where are you staying now?"

She lowered her head, hiding it behind those brown locks he used to rummage his hands through. So soft. So beautiful...So _not anything he should be thinking about now_.

"I can't tell"

He quirked his eyebrow, looking at her questioningly.

"You can't tell?"

She looked up at him, her big blue eyes pleading with him. He did not want to give in. Did not want to feel this big soft spot in his heart. Did not want to hear his heart reasoning with his head. How could helping her out hurt him? She'd just be his roommate. She'd just share an appartment with him...a couch...a shower...a…whoa...not anything he should be thinking about now either.

"Okay"

Had he really wanted to say this? It had been flowing from his mouth before his brain had kicked in. Rory smiled a little. He knew what she was about to say before she even opened her mouth.

"Don ' t say "okay" just to make me stop talking. Only say "okay" if you really want this."

Jess took a deep breath. This was totally insane. Something he should definitely not do. Something he would most certainly regret.

"Okay"

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